The Unconscious Wall
This one is one that I hope will help a lot of people. This is one thing that is the hardest for me to keep in check for myself. My heart goes out to anyone going through these types of issues, more people have gone through this, and this is not just something you need to go through on your own.
Happy Reading, thank you for supporting my dream and helping me get this book finished!
Have you ever been through something so traumatic that if anything similar comes up in your life, you shell off and cut off any possibility of getting hurt by the situation again? Yeah...me too. I think it is a natural reaction to help keep yourself "safe" from whatever difficult situation it may be. However, it can turn into something quite selfish if you are not careful.
Before each deployment or long training period, I always would start this wall. Brick by brick, I would unconsciously start to push my husband away. I didn't want to hurt after he left, and especially if he didn't make it back..so I would push. I never realized the amount of pain I was causing both of us by doing this special little "trick". All I did was cause unnecessary turmoil that we could have definitely avoided.
Looking back to my childhood, I now realize that feeling abandoned is one of the things that I most fear and am REALLY good at creating scenarios where I begin to start victimizing myself and "pour the mortar" for my wall to begin. Unfortunately the military is a breeding ground for constant abandonment. Which created a lot of opportunity for me to build up my wall and push away the love of my life.
Luckily for us, our foundation started out to be very solid and we have made it through a lot of the unconscious bull poop we both created for ourselves and our family.
In my next chapter I talk a little more about the loss of our baby in 2003, but this fits in to this one as well. I had a very hard time coming to terms with what I had been through without him, and made it very clear I wasn’t getting hurt again. Wes came home, 10 months after I had lost the baby. I was FINALLY able to mourn..and mourn I did. I failed to realize then, that he also was holding the burden of not being home while I was falling apart. I vividly remember a night where Wes came in and sat next to me on the couch in our room. He wrapped his arms around me, and I broke. I was so angry with him for being away, I was so angry I lost the baby, I was angry at God, angry at the Military, angry at the war, and so angry with myself for being so ANGRY. I pushed myself into a tight ball, and blocked him from getting too close. I didn't want to be hurt again. The wall was up, not for long..as he is amazing and worked through this difficult time with me.
Take a close look at yourself and your Veteran and see if there is an invisible wall building. Chances are, there is some push happening and it is something you can be aware of and change before any damage starts. Pushing away your solider is one of the most dangerous things you could possibly do, because, they leave and have the worry of a million things from the get go. Their focus will never be on their safety if they are always worrying about what you will be doing while they are gone...and same theory goes for your Veteran. If they are pushing you away to "protect" you. Call them out, nicely and get a hold of things before they get out of control. No deployment can be successful without the support of each person involved. Be patient and allow the process to flow through. Just be aware of the different stages and be ready to straighten out when needed.
In 2007 my husband and I were gearing up for our longest separation yet, a 22 month separation, that, inevitably would be the worst one. Not only because of length, but because of the state we were in with our relationship. Don’t get me wrong, we were happy and in love, but the wall building was WELL under way. There was a time that he had gone to a restaurant with some of his friends, and…let’s just say, it was one that I was not TOTALLY ok with at the time. I had just had our daughter 2 years previously and was still not back to my “pre baby” size…LOL. Boy I was silly. I found out through a bank statement that he had gone to this restaurant. Now, it wasn’t so much that he went, it was more that he had gone without saying a word to me about it. That was what hurt the most. 11 years later, I see how silly I was being, and realize he needed to have time with his friends in a “normal” environment before they were all off to war. However, it sent me SPINNING out of control. To the point of not “knowing” if there was love between us anymore…dramatic right? Well, I was building my wall. I was trying to make sure if he was killed in action, I wouldn’t hurt. Right? Because that makes sense. All I was doing was causing more stress to an already stressful situation. See where I am going there? There is NO need to add unnecessary stress to something that already sucks and is not fun.
Gratefully, he came home, and we were able to move forward with our lives. But, trust me, the wall building was still there. I was waiting for the next disaster to come forth and on was still edge. Not only was I gearing up for the next disappointment, but our 7 year old son at the time was waiting to hear dad was leaving again. My husband was in the process of getting out of the Army, but we were all awaiting sadness. Our 7 year old was diagnosed with ADHD, because his behavior got WAY out of control..guess what? WALL. He was building his wall at 7 YEARS OLD! He was waiting to have his life turned upside down again…or waiting to have “his house” back to himself with his mom and sister again. I couldn’t ever decide which one. The man of the house battle ensued as our son realized my husband was not going anywhere any time soon. It was a VERY interesting time of our lives. Our son Rylan was tail spinning out of control, our marriage was on the rocks, and our daughter was the glue that held us all together at 4 years old. Addie, our daughter, has always been the one who no matter what the situation always had a smile on her face. She has always been the one to make a goofy sound or something WAY out of the “norm” to make others happy and laugh. We needed that. It was a hard first year having him home.
I’d love to tell you that even after 8 years of being out of the military, and knowing deployments and separations are out of our line of sight That we are always enjoying each other’s company and never have a “wall building” moment in time. Unfortunately, I cannot.
It took 6 years for my husband to realize he had an issue with PTSD, and needed to really explore having medical help. Within that time, we had to get through a lot of up’s and downs, which meant every ambulance that flew past my work towards my house was a possibility that our kids found their daddy at home before I could get home. My heart always raced, and I would immediately go for the phone. Which meant, more walls being built to “protect” myself from the chance of finding out my husband had been a part of the statistic of at least 22 Veterans committing suicide per day.
For us, life will never be the same, the walls will endlessly be building, and collapsing and we will all, as a family, need to make sure to be super conscious of the effort it takes to make that wall. We all work to focus on the positive and try our best to remember the good ole days..before war.
Our children are now in their early to late teens, and still reflect on the difficult days we had placed before us. I think it is still difficult for our kids, our son especially to deal with all the hard stuff we had to go through. He has grown into an incredible young man, and he has grown to have a deep respect for military and what Veterans have done for all of us.
We all have our hard times with what we were handed, and it will always be there. But, we are one team and we know how to help each other through the garbage. So many times we get so used to the “norm” that we don’t realize things could be so much better. We get lost in the feeling of defeat, we stop wanting to try.
Addiction can be a huge wall between a family, and it can start out small and grow into a giant monster quicker than you can blink! There are so many different variations to addiction, whether it is food all the way to drugs and alcohol. There is a “coping” mechinism for everyone. We have gone through our fair share of this type of wall, and want you all to know that you can get through this one. It takes a lot of love, patience, and determination to get through it! The hard thing with addiction, is that once it starts, it begins a snow ball. The addiction creeps in, you succumb to the desire…you feel guilty…you build a wall..you try to stop…you succumb again…you feel guilty…you build on to your wall. The cycle continues and continues until you aren’t sure which direction to go anymore. You don’t want to keep falling, but you cannot stop. Whether it is you or your spouse using addicition as a tool to help you make it through. This is NOT the way to handle it. Communication with each other and supporting one another is one of the only ways you will make it successfully. There are so many resources out there, you can reach out to your church family, or find a therapist that works specifically in the area you are struggling with. You’ve got to be open to the fact there is a problem first, and the rest can fall in to place. Unfortunately, addiction is a major factor in the amount Veteran deaths that rise up each day in this beautiful Nation. We lose too many Vets whether phyically or emotionally to their mental battles that we cannot see. At the end of this book, I will include many resources that could help you in this area.
“Not all scars show. Not all wounds heal. Sometimes you can't see, the pain someone feels.”― Lisa French
If you are married to a Veteran and you are struggling to break out of the “wall building” cycle. I challenge you to think of at least 3 things that you love, or did love about your spouse prior to getting married. What was it that drew you to your Vet? What was your favorite memory while you were dating? Think of all those things that made up your butterfly moments, and start to do those things again. Whether you wrote notes to each other, danced in the middle of the room, took a drive to watch the sunset, anything. Draw up those feelings again. Your relationship is worth each step you can take to make this wall break down. Even if you are the only one working to fix whatever is broken, I believe that once effort is made on one side, things will slowly start to improve on the other. The only way to fix a broken foundation is to fill the empty space with positive intention.
If there is one main thing I would love for you to take away from this chapter it is this. Deployments are hard, separations are hard. There is no easy way to get through them. You are in control of how you react to certain things, and there are people and resources out there that can help you get through an impending deployment. You and your soldier are a TEAM, one that can get through ANYTHING. You are both (or all if this is a family reading this) able to help each other through some of the hardest trials of your life. Take time for each other, and take time to understand the other’s point of view. If you can help yourself understand a glimpse of what your spouse, father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter is going through, you will be one step ahead of where we were 11 years ago. Be mindful of your feelings, and be wary of the way you may be making your other half feel. It is easy for you to take on a victim role, but I promise you, this is just as scary for your solider as it is for you.
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